Part 25

303 32 2
                                    


As the thought formed in his mind, he heard the church bells beginning to chime the hour. One, two, three chimes... quickly, he had only seconds to make his confession! Four, five, six, seven, and he could only stare dumbly at Sophy, his stomach churning with dread as eight, nine, ten and eleven sounded...

Twelve.

The deep chiming of the bells faded away on the night air, leaving silence in its wake; silence broken only by the distant babble of talk and laughing voices from the assembly rooms. He stared at Sophy and she stared back. Her face didn't change, and he began to feel confused. Was he still Mr. Stanton? Was he back to himself?

He glanced down to find that his fine evening clothes were still there. But of course they were: Grunewald had given them. They were not part of Hidenory's enchantment.

Slowly, he reached up a shaking hand and touched his cheek. His fingers met the rough texture of his ruined, twisted flesh, and his heart broke.

'I'm sorry...' he whispered. 'I'm so sorry.'

But Sophy did not look horrified. She watched him calmly, and when he began to apologise she actually smiled.

'So,' she said. 'I knew you had a secret.'

He stared, stunned. 'Wh-what? How?'

'It is funny,' she said thoughtfully. 'When one lives with a secret, it becomes easier, somehow, to sense when others are hiding something.'

'I cannot understand you,' he stuttered. 'You... have a secret?'

'Yes! A very important one! And I will tell you what it is, but first you must tell me who you are.'

So he explained everything, and now it was suddenly easy. He talked and talked, relief making him almost incoherent. At length, Sophy stopped him by placing a gentle hand over his lips.

'Enough,' she smiled. 'I think I understand everything. I have only one question.'

He lifted his brows to show that he was listening.

'How did you come by this curse?'

She removed her hand, inviting him to talk, but this time it was not easy. He took a deep breath, and another, trying to order his thoughts. The tension of the evening—the excitement, the elation, the fear, the relief—had sent his thoughts into chaos and it took him some few moments to summon the clarity—and the resolve—to answer Sophy's question.

'I grew up in a palace,' he began at last. 'That sounds wonderful, does it not? But in truth I was one of several stray children. My mother had been a servant; she probably died in childbirth, but no one seemed to know. And my father was rumoured to be one of the gardeners, but nobody could say for sure.

'I had many friends, however, as there were other children like me; belonging to no one, living wild in the grounds. But the person I loved best was Lihyaen. I should have had nothing to do with her: she was the princess, and I only a wild boy. But how could I help it? She was perfect.'

Sophy had turned white, but he hardly noticed, so involved in his story was he. 'We were the same age, we loved the same things... her nurses kept trying to chase me away, but we were too cunning for them.

'Then one day...' His throat tried to close and he was forced to stop and clear it. 'One day,' he continued, 'Well, even now I hardly know what happened. Lihyaen had asked me to wait for her in the second potting shed—we had a secret way in and out, and we often used to crouch there, telling each other stories. She had a way with the flowers—truly remarkable. Anyway, she did not appear. I went looking for her.'

Miss Landon and AubranaelWhere stories live. Discover now